Security or liberty? There is an answer: John Farmer

In this perilous new world, there seems no acceptable alternative to monitoring telephone and internet traffic.

Edward Snowden was revealed today as the source for The Guardian's information regarding the National Security Administration's secret intelligence programs.TheGuardian.com image

Any clash between security and liberty invariably brings up Benjamin Franklin’s famous warning that one who surrenders essential liberty for a little temporary security neither gets nor deserves either, or words to that effect.

It’s a lofty sentiment and sounds especially fine on oratorical occasions celebrating the greatness of America, like the Fourth of July. Politicians of both parties love it — lets ’em sound like statesmen while not offending anyone who can’t be offended without losing votes.

But it really isn’t true. When applied to the current furor over the federal government’s data mining of telephone and internet traffic, Franklin’s warning is particularly misleading and inappropriate.

Sometimes, depending on the severity of the threat, security may demand some sacrifice of liberty. This, sadly, it one of those times. If, for example, the Islamists bent on our destruction were to acquire nuclear weapons — with the collapse of Pakistan, say — the threat to this country could become existential.

Moreover, to anyone who’s been around awhile, the disclosure that the National Security Agency’s been collecting phone and internet data is not really surprising news. The fact that NSA (aka No Such Agency) has been running international telephone traffic through its commuters and scanning for tell-tale language linked to terrorism or potential targets in the West has been known for some time.

Is there any danger that such global scrutiny of American and foreign phone and internet traffic can be misused by its government overseers and lead to unneeded intrusions on privacy? You bet.

But a missed threat — sarin gas in New York subways, say, another 9/11-scale attack, or a suitcase nuclear weapon, or who-knows-what — is a far greater danger.

There’s a choice to be made here. And reason dictates that the choice must lean toward security — albeit with a keen regard for the need to protect privacy and a sharp eye out for excessive, unneeded surveillance.

There are no neutrals in this dust-up over privacy vs. security, or at least I haven’t found any. You’re either red-hot for security at almost any cost, á la the editorial pundits at the Wall Street Journal, or in mourning for our lost privacy, á la the liberals who produce the New York Times editorial pages.

It’s not an easy choice. But I come down on the side of the WSJ, for which I doubtless will do time in purgatory.

“In a democracy,” the Times editorialized, “people are entitled to know what techniques are being used by the government to spy on them, how the records are being held and for how long, who will have access to them, and the safeguards in place to prevent abuse.”

Sounds fine — if you overlook the flaws.

We are not, in fact, “a democracy” in which, theoretically, every single American would be entitled to detailed information about security programs. We’re a republic in which the people are represented politically by elected officials who act and receive critical, even secret, information in their name.

It’s true that not all members of Congress have been briefed on the security programs; to do so would be a real security risk because Congress leaks like a damp diaper. But the members of the Senate and House intelligence committees, Republicans and Democrats alike, who oversee these programs say they’ve been briefed and approve of both the telephone and internet surveillance.

Moreover, when our security minders feel the need to go beyond merely logging in calls made and received — to get the text of messages — they need court approval.

Is the system fail-safe? No way. (Ironically, the best evidence is the hiring of the unreliable and maybe unstable whistle-blower Edward Snowden.) But in this perilous new world, there seems no acceptable alternative to monitoring telephone and internet traffic. What’s more, it’s old hat.

It’s a world well-described by Arthur L. Yeager of Edison. He wrote me that he wonders at the “uproar over the limited monitoring of communications data” and points out that our precious privacy was long ago pierced by government and modern commerce.

“All my internet connections, bank transactions, investments, purchases, medications, reading preferences and even my underwear size,” he writes, “are stored in computers somewhere and available to those with proper access and to hackers at their will.

“It is time” Yeager concludes, “to finally move into the 21st century and recognize that privacy, as we knew it, is a relic of the past.”